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Glass hand dissolvingto ice petal flowersrevolving--I just like the feeling I get I haven't really had many favorite songs.

However, late seventies and most of the 80s I haven't seen anything impressive. I love the early stuff, like pre 69.--Now, whats not to get about the first verse of the song.

Quote:

Dark StarAn oxymoron: the brightest of objects, seen as the absence of brightness.

Tracking down the original use of the phrase "dark star," and its subsequent meanings and usages, is a task meant only for a determined obsessive. Namely, myself.

The phrase seems to have come to the English language by way of the astronomers who spoke Middle High German, who in turn borrowed it from Latin, translating the phrase "stella obscura", used by Roman astronomers to describe a faint star. This was translated into the German of the Minnesingers, and of the medieval German astronomers, as "dunkler Stern". The astronomers, according to an article by Arthur Groos, used it in a comparable manner to the meaning of the Romans, while the Minnesingers adopted it as a literary metaphor.

[The "dark star" hides itself.Do likewise, beautiful lady, when you see me:Let your eyes glance at another man,And no one will know how things are between us." For many years, the phrase as used by the Minnesingers was taken to mean "Venus", the "star" obscured by cloudy vapors, and representing Love in the age of chivalry. Groos' article contradicts this interpretation, arguing for a much more complex metaphor. His article ("Kurenberg's 'Dark Star', in Speculum: a Journal of Medieval Studies, vol. 54, 1979, pp 469-78) is worth reading.

Astronomers today still use the phrase "dark star" to refer to the phenomenon of a faint star, and in reference to dwarf stars. My astronomy isn't what it might be, so any help in this region would be appreciated. I'll cite one recent article:"Dark star throws light on missing mass." New Scientist, v. 116 (Nov. 19, 1987), p. 33. The subject tracings for the article indicate it is about Dark matter (Astronomy) and Dwarf stars.

In your discussion of Dark Star, you noted that astonomers use the term in connection with dwarf stars. I'm not an astronomer myself, but I work for a company that creates textbooks, and I found some stuff about dwarf stars in one of our astronomy texts-- ASTONOMY: THE EVOLVING UNIVERSE by Michael Zeilik (John WIley & Sons, Inc., 1994).

In essence (and in one sense of dwarf), stars go through dwarf stages as they die. Our sun, for example, "... will become a white dwarf, then a black dwarf-- a cold corpse in space."

On the atomic level, the nucleus of an atom is surrounded with a cloud of electrons. At high stellar temperatures, atoms are ionized and the electrons run around free of the nuclei. As a star is crushed to higher densities in its evolution, the electrons form a degenerate electron gas.

In 1935, a guy named Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar applied the physics of a degenerate electron gas to the model of a star. He found that the pressure exerted by the electrons could resist the force of gravity only for stars of less than 1.4 solar masses and that such stars would have a particular density. Such stars are known as white dwarfs. This guy also found the crucial point at which the star has the highest density and smallest radius possible. Any more mass at all added to this point, and the star collapses. This point is known as the Chandrasekhar limit.

So, a white dwarf is a star at the end point of its thermonuclear history where no heavy elements are fused and no energy is produced-- the end of the line of energy production. Slowly, the stored interal heat of a white dwarf then radiates into space (pouring its light into ashes, as it were). Eventually, it becomes a black dwarf, cold and energyless and non-productive.

Another kind of dwarf is the brown dwarf. The brown dwarf is a protostar that never achieves enough mass to become an actual star. The text I'm drawing from defines brown dwarf as: "... a very low mass object of low luminosity that never becomes hot enough to sustain thermonuclear reactions."

So, a white dwarf is a dying star, at the point at which it no longer produces energy. A brown dwarf never gets to be a star. In either case, the image is of barreness, death, and stagnation-- and we all better go while we can!

One final note: when a massive star dies in a supernova, the blast can spew newly synthesized elements into interstellar space. "Supernova explosions, remnants, and pulsars may be the sources of cosmic rays." Or as Walt Whitman would have it, "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars."

David, this is terrific work you're doing. Regarding "Dark Star", it brings to mind (at least, my mind) something I read in John Gribbin and Martin Rees' book Cosmic Coincidences, Dark Matter, Mankind and Anthropic Cosmology (Bantam, 1989): (Gribbin also did In Search of Schrodinger's Cat which to my mind (and most probably no-one else's) relates to the Cheshire Cat because it is and it isn't (but isn't everything?))

"There is no longer room to doubt that dark matter holds our Galaxy, and others, together; the major issue is, what is that dark matter?"

He goes on to describe failed galaxies. Sort of a step on down the road from dark stars, huh?

BTW, when you said have you ever wondered what would happen if you stopped to investigate everything you didn't know about (or something to that effect), that's what I've been doing for about 50 years and boy am I ever lost! Anyway, I sure enjoy your work and the postings of others. ortagus@gate.net

I have a bit of information to add to the astronomical ideas associated with "Dark Star." I agree with Rob Meador that Hunter's lyrics could suggest the collapse of star into a white dwarf - "Dark Star crashes, pouring its light into ashes," but I've always thought the song is more likely referring to a pulsar. I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on stellar evolution, but here's the basic definition of a pulsar: When a very massive star goes supernova, the collapsing core becomes a neutron star- an ultra-dense object, part way between a white dwarf and a black hole. A pulsar is type of neutron star that, because of its rapid spin, and ejection of radiation, causes an observer to see a intermittent pulse of light (or more likely, radio waves). A frequently used analogy is that of a lighthouse. Pulsars are often found in the center of a massive nebula "cloud," the result of the original supernova. (An example is the pulsar within the Crab Nebula.) "Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion" is an apt description. Also, it's important to note that the radiation being emitted by a pulsar is being ejected from its magnetic poles. Hunter's lyrics, "...the forces tear loose from the axis" (or Garcia's "...the forces stem from the axis,") seem significant in this context.

I believe that theories about pulsars were first being developed in the mid to late 1960's, and pulsars were probably a pretty hot topic in some circles. Larry Niven's short-story "Neutron Star" (written during that time period) is a fascinating monologue on what it might be like to explore up close this type of stellar object.

Hi, I was just going to throw my .02 in on the matter of Dark Star. Imagine if you will a mirrored sphere in space. If it isn't too close to any light source then all light that reaches it could be treated as a point source. This means that it wouldn't show up as anything, it would just blend in mirroring the surrounding space. Just a thought.

Any number of books and songs have used the phrase, and it is now impossible to tell who influenced whom, and is it important, anyway? I find it interesting to see how often the phrase has been used, so I offer the following, doubtless far from complete, list: